


Occupational Hazards

by leftofrevolution



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Injury, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9204425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: Orson Krennic gets injured in the line of duty far more often than a member of the Republic Corps of Engineers really should. That's Galen Erso's opinion, anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

> When watching _Rogue One_ , two (of many) things I noticed about Director Krennic were that he was bizarrely brave, and he had terrible luck. I figure that while some parts of his character may have changed (largely for the worse) as he got older, those traits have probably held true since time immemorial.
> 
> This story may or may not be 100% canon-compliant. I know there is a book, and I have not read that book, though I've heard about bits of it through the osmosis of the internet. At any rate, this story doesn't contradict anything that made it into the movie as far as I know, so good enough. Takes place during the first half of the Clone Wars. Orson Krennic is in his late twenties, while Galen Erso is five years older. The 'before' pictures shown [here](http://galenkrennic.tumblr.com/post/155126658690/36-years-before-the-rogue-one-mission-galen-erso) are more or less how I picture them.

“You were shot again,” said Galen, disbelieving.

“I was shot again,” Orson confirmed, sounding far more unconcerned than a man with his right shoulder wrapped in bacta strips really should. “Pass me that datapad, would you? Hard to reach with this and all.” He wiggled his fingers to demonstrate; only the pinkie and ring finger moved, the others displaying the alarming stillness that spoke of nerve damage.

Galen obliged, though he was unable to wipe the frown from his face. “You get shot quite often for a member of the Engineering Corps.”

Orson balanced the datapad on his knee and immediately started scrawling through some file. He managed to make it look casual and even somewhat elegant, but the pose was precarious and Galen wondered how long it would take before the datapad tipped and Orson forgot himself and further injured his shoulder by reaching to steady it. “Well, you know,” said Orson absently, “Most of the work we do these days is on worlds recently ravaged by the Separatists, and sometimes a few of them are still around.”

“Shooting at engineers.”

“Shooting at anyone wearing Republic colors,” Orson corrected. “Engineers are just more convenient because we aren’t usually wearing armor. Easy targets.”

They were, ostensibly, going to go out for dinner; they hadn’t seen much of each other since the war began, Orson off-world more often than not trying to fix the damage caused by the fighting while Galen stayed behind on Coruscant. It had been Orson who had given him the referral that landed him an interview for a professorship at the Institute, and while intellectually Galen knew their current arrangements made sense—he had the temperament for teaching and a wife and newborn daughter besides, while Orson couldn’t stay in the same place for more than a month at a time without going stir crazy—he still felt an irrational pang of guilt every time he saw some fresh injury on Orson gained in the course of his work.

Which was often. Every time Orson was newly returned from an assignment since the Battle of Geonosis, in fact, though this was only the second time Orson had managed to get shot. Usually it was something more mundane like a burn from welding with substandard protection (some planets had more resources than others); still, it seemed a bit excessive to Galen for an engineer to get shot twice in six months, technical member of the military or no. What were the clone troopers doing? Not their jobs, obviously.

Their dinner reservation wasn’t for another hour, but Lyra was kind enough to release him from his responsibilities for the evening whenever Orson was newly returned from a posting in the field (about once a month), so Galen usually came over a bit early to Orson’s apartment so they could catch up. And, lately, for Galen to hand Orson things and help rearrange Orson’s apartment so he could reach everything he needed without aggravating whatever trauma he had recently accrued before the bacta did its work. Based on Galen’s limited knowledge of bacta, Orson would likely have full range of motion back in a few days, though the nerve damage was worrisome and would, Galen thought, be worth keeping an eye on.

Like Orson was worth keeping an eye on. Orson had never been shot when he was somewhere Galen could watch over him… though he had, in retrospect, been punched more than a few times, more often than not defending Galen even after Galen asked him to stop doing that. There had also been that one incident near the caf maker in the Futures Program’s cafeteria that Orson had never explained to Galen’s satisfaction.

Sometimes it seemed exceedingly likely that Orson just enjoyed excitement a little too much for his own good and was even more reckless without Galen around to temper at least a few of his stupider impulses, which is what led him to ask, “Are you sure you didn’t… provoke them in some way?”

That actually managed to make Orson glance up from his datapad in indignation. “Provoke Separatist soldiers? What do you take me for?”

Galen failed to be moved by this. He knew Orson too well. “Someone who would provoke Separatist soldiers.”

The damning lip twitch Galen had caught earlier evolved into a full grin. “Alright, so I may have been doing a last-minute informal inspection of Christophsis’ new capital building—which is some of my best work, by the way—when I noticed three people I didn’t recognize in Engineer Corps uniforms near some of the pillars in the back, and _then_ I noticed the explosive charges they were planting, but apparently I hadn’t managed to back out of hearing range when I called for the clone troopers, and I couldn’t just let them run for it and set the explosives off-”

“You really could have,” Galen interrupted, but Orson just ignored him and forged on,

“So I tackled the one holding the detonator-”

Galen buried his face in his hands.

“And he dropped it, but the other two pulled blasters and- Galen. You’re hyperventilating.”

“It’s not as easy to stop having a panic attack on your behalf as you might think,” said Galen, who was indeed in the midst of one, and there was only so much deep breathing exercises could do. Still, his voice was level when he said, “I hope you know you are lucky to be alive.”

“Luckier if I’d never been shot at all,” said Orson, though it didn’t sound like it bothered him overmuch. Which was the point when the datapad on his knee, left unattended for too long, listed to one side and Orson instinctively reached out with his right hand to grab it.

It was a not-terribly-entertaining three second comedy play that ended with the datapad on the floor and Orson lying next to the datapad, looking like he was not entirely sure how he got there.

“You fainted,” said Galen, who had managed to grab Orson by his (uninjured) shoulder just in time to keep Orson from hitting his head on the edge of the caf table.

“Well that’s just great,” said Orson, his indignation this time unfeigned. “I can’t feel my right hand at all now.”

Orson sighed. “I’ll check your bandages.” He then glanced at the time. “… And order some takeout.” It hadn’t been that good of a restaurant anyway.

\--*--

“You were shot _again_?” said Galen.

“In my defense,” began Orson.

“It’s been a _month_ ,” said Galen, not finding himself terribly interested in hearing Orson’s explanation. He looked over the bacta strips absolutely swathing the entirety of the left side of Orson’s abdomen. “Why did they even let you out of the medbay?”

“Well,” said Orson.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” said Galen. “You shouldn’t be _conscious_. You look like you were hit by cannon fire.”

“Rifle slug thrower,” said Orson, “And at some point you should really let me finish a sentence.”

“You were _just shot_ ,” said Galen, aware that he was getting worked up and not really caring. “By something that left _burning bits of metal_ in your body. I shouldn’t be allowing you to finish anything for the foreseeable future but protein shakes.”

“I’m actually fine for solid food,” said Orson, “Though the nurse said I should probably stick to toast for a while, apparently my anesthetic has a common side effect of nausea-”

“If we actually kept our reservation this time and you spent the night throwing up nerf steak and brandy, it would serve you right,” said Galen, but he had drained what little reserves of outrage he had and found himself left exhausted. He sat down heavily next to Orson, on his uninjured side but still at a distance, and sighed.

There was a moment of silence.

“The nerf steak actually sounds pretty good, but alcohol is actually contraindicated by my antibiotics, so…” Orson trailed off, obviously expecting to be interrupted again.

Galen said nothing.

“Galen?”

It was typical, Galen thought, for Orson to sound more worried about Galen’s silence than the fact he’d had a hole punched through him by a superheated metal ball. He might have let Orson stew in it for a bit—the idiot deserved that much—except he could see out of the corner of his eye that Orson was already attempting to turn and look at his face, which would pull at least a little bit on his abdominal muscles and Orson might not even feel it due to the anesthetic and probably hurt himself some more, so instead Galen leaned sideways and rested his head on Orson’s shoulder. Orson’s newly healed shoulder. Which still bore a raised, off-white spider web of a scar from where he’d been shot a month ago.

It was, at least, enough to get Orson to settle without Galen having to say anything for another minute; he took that time to try and find words that would affect anything. It was surprisingly difficult.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Orson.”

“I didn’t!” said Orson. Real indignation again, though he didn’t shift away. “It was at the inauguration ceremony for Aargonar’s rebuilt spaceport. I was being congratulated by their king for my efforts leading the restoration—he was very complimentary about my updated design—and there was an assassin aiming for the king-”

“Let me guess,” said Galen, unable to stop himself from interrupting Orson once more. “You tackled the assassin.”

“No! It was a sniper, hundreds of meters away from where we were standing. He just missed.”

“Missed.” Galen was really too tired to manage to sound surprised anymore. The word came out rather flatter than he meant it to.

“He wasn’t a very good assassin. Anyway, the king’s guard got to him before he managed to shoot anyone else. And the king was very apologetic. He sent a gift basket. And a medal.” Orson waved in the general direction of his desk in the corner, nearly hitting Galen in the face—apparently the anesthetic was starting to set in—before making a noise of self-disgust and letting himself relax further into the couch.

Galen looked. There was indeed a gift basket. And a medal. Galen didn’t recognize any of the fruit, and he couldn’t read the medal, but it all looked very nice. He was briefly tempted to throw it off Orson’s balcony. “If the assassin had been any worse at his job, you would be dead right now.”

Orson snorted. “You can’t go harping about my mortality every time I get shot, Galen.”

“You are an engineer!” Apparently he’d had more outrage left than he’d thought, but then Orson’s spectacular lack of care for himself had long been a tender spot. Orson actually started at the sound of his voice, then winced and curled in a little on his left side, which was just as well because Galen was already on the verge of shaking him. “You are an engineer, Orson! An architect! Military rank or not, you are _not_ a soldier! You aren’t a Jedi or a clone trooper! Yet the war started seven months ago and you’ve already been shot three times!”

The first time… the first time had been. Fine.

Well, not fine. The Engineering Corps had been called in while Ryloth was still contested, the ground troops needing fortifications built to shore up their newly taken territory. The war had just started and Orson had been eager to do _something_ productive, so he’d been on the front lines helping organize the building efforts. Everything had been going well, and it was thought that the Republic would retake the planet before the week was out. He’d even met Mace Windu in passing. Then three days in, a blaster bolt shot by a battle droid during a Separatist push had grazed the side of his head and knocked him flat.

It had been terrifying to hear about, but the only evidence of that injury Galen saw personally was the beginnings of Orson’s new haircut, and it had been incurred in an active warzone. Galen had at least known to worry about him then. The fact that Orson had now been shot twice in locations where the fighting was ostensibly over was… Stressful was putting it mildly, but Galen couldn’t think of a stronger word. For what it felt like to know that while the war continued, Orson would never be sent anywhere truly safe, and that as Orson’s emergency contact he could any day receive a call informing him that Lieutenant Commander Krennic was dead.

Orson stared at him, both during his outburst and after, still curled in slightly on his injury. “I’m not trying to get shot, Galen.” His voice was quiet as Galen’s had not been, lending everything a sense of unreality, for Galen to be the one shouting for once when it had always been Orson with the temper. “I’m not. But it happened, and I’ll be fine.”

“Tell me you’ll be careful.” Galen knew he was being unreasonable; not because he wanted Orson to look out for himself better, but because he thought that would keep Orson safe. But what else could he ask Orson to do? What else was there?

Orson didn’t say anything for a second, then he grinned wryly. “You can’t spend all of your time worrying about me, Galen.”

“No, I can’t,” Galen agreed steadily, angry despite himself that Orson wouldn’t even promise what little Galen asked of him. “I have a wife and a daughter to go home to.”

The crook of Orson’s mouth twisted, and he turned away, fully this time, not just protecting a hurt. “So go. Back to your precious Lyra.” Definitely bitter. Galen had heard it before, though never so blatant, but then Orson had never handled anesthetics terribly well.

“I would,” said Galen, still steady, “But my best friend got himself shot and can’t even get off the couch, so I’ll be making him soup and calling my wife to tell her I won’t be home until the morning so I can make sure he doesn’t die in his sleep.”

Galen still couldn’t entirely make out Orson’s face, still mostly facing towards the balcony, but some element of good humor had definitely returned to Orson’s voice when he said, “I don’t even like soup.”

Galen rolled his eyes and stood up, making his way towards the kitchen. “Yes I know, but I do.”

\--*--

“I stepped on a mine,” said Orson.

There was not a lot to say to that, so Galen just sank into the chair by Orson’s bedside, staring at the stump of what had once been Orson’s right leg, now cut off cleanly just below the knee.

 _At least the doctor was smart enough to not let him out of the medbay this time_ , thought Galen, sounding slightly hysterical even in his head. It was… a very sterile place. It reminded Galen less of the hospital Lyra had gone to give birth than he thought it would. Of course, there the walls had been covered in pictures of fluffy cartoon Banthas, not a plain white that somehow served to make Orson look even paler than he actually was.

“I stepped on a mine,” Orson said again, as if Galen had not heard him the first time, but when Galen looked up in irritation (irritation, that was the look he was going for, it wasn’t like Orson was any more likely to listen if Galen showed how he honestly felt), there was a lack of focus to Orson’s eyes that made Galen wonder if Orson was even aware he was repeating himself. “Did you know, it didn’t even hurt? Still doesn’t.”

Galen looked at the doctor. “What painkiller are you administering?”

“Comaren,” said the doctor, a Twi’lek who didn’t look any older than Orson. “We’re keeping him on it for another day or so. We salvaged his other leg, but we just finished pulling the last bits of shrapnel out of it, so we started him on bacta treatment only this morning.”

Galen nodded grimly and turned back to Orson. “Thank you.” Thankfully the doctor took it for the request for privacy it was and left after hanging Orson’s chart back on the end of his bed.

“So,” said Galen, once the doctor was gone, the door closed behind her, “You stepped on a mine.” He’d known that Orson was going to Dorin to assist in disabling the minefield that the Separatists had made of the area around the planet’s capital, but his understanding had been that droids were actually handling the cleanup and the Engineering Corps was there to help direct and then deal with any resultant damage. At no point was Orson actually supposed to get within a kilometer of live mines. Not that with Orson’s history Galen had thought that much assurance, a kind of inevitability to the whole proceedings that had left Galen feeling more relieved than worried when he had been contacted from the hospital rather than the morgue.

Orson had managed to turn to look at him by this point (looking incredibly awkward as he did, as Orson never was off painkillers), though his eyes still weren’t focusing properly. “As it turns out, the local survey team was incompetent and the Separatists seeded about twice as big an area as we were told in the report.”

“And you found this out when you stepped on one.”

“Inspecting a nearby village that had been abandoned when the Separatists invaded. We were making sure everything was structurally sound before the locals returned.” A ghost of Orson’s usual smirk quirked his mouth. “Just as well. The Separatists had placed a landmine inside every entryway. Vindictive fucks.”

“Casualties?”

“Well, no one else was going to walk into any more buildings after I did. We lost a few droids, I guess. And the survey team was fired.”

“So just you.”

“Just me, yeah.” Orson smiled as though this was funny.

Galen’s stared down at his hands, which had started shaking when he received the call from the hospital and hadn’t stopped in the hour since. He still wasn’t sure with whom he was angrier: Orson, whose list of priorities didn’t include his own wellbeing, or himself, who had at some point become the sort of man to accept that this war—now ongoing for over a year and showing no signs of stopping—was going to kill his closest friend.

Except nothing was really inevitable, was it? He had just lapsed into complacency, safe here on Coruscant with Lyra and Jyn, while Orson went out into the galaxy to do something actually worthwhile and gradually got himself torn to shreds.

Orson had slowly stopped smiling as Galen failed to respond, though it tentatively returned as Galen looked at him. “Thinking deep thoughts, I see.”

The tone was fond, but Galen didn’t bother dignifying the words with a reply. “Orson. Resign your commission.”

Orson blinked, the smile instantly gone again. “What? Don’t be ridiculous-”

“I received an offer a week ago from Zerpen Industries for a position on Vallt studying kyber crystals. Energy research.” He had not been going to take it. Vallt was in the Outer Rim, and he and his family had become… comfortable, on Coruscant.

But while he enjoyed teaching at the Institute, he had always known he could be doing something more. “The work is important. You’ve always told me I was wasting my gifts. And…” he wrapped his arms around himself, which did absolutely nothing to stop the shaking. “Every time I see you, there is less of you than there was before. The way things are going, it won’t be long before there isn’t anything left. I refuse to be here for that. So I won’t be.” He looked into Orson’s eyes, which for the first time since Galen entered the room were actually focusing. “The only question is whether you’ll be coming with me. You’re qualified for a few of their other open positions; we could work together, get away from this war-”

“I can’t.” Orson stared down at his knees, his hands clenched in his lap. “I _can’t_. I have an officer’s commission, Galen. I can’t resign until I’ve completed eight years.” And it had only been six. Leaving two more years for Orson to get himself killed out on some Force-forsaken planet in the middle of nowhere, and Galen had been right the first time: there was nothing he could do.

Nothing except make sure he wasn’t there to see it.

Galen stood up.

“Galen…”

He turned towards the door.

“Galen!”

A hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist as he passed by the bed. Galen pulled away, hard—all of his instincts of self-protection telling him that he needed to escape—but the grip held fast, the fingers white-knuckled. “You aren’t walking out on me, you bastard.” Despite the surety of the words, Orson’s voice was ragged, slightly shaky. On the verge of panic Orson had never been prone to and Galen only recognized because it was so common in himself. The kind of reaction one might reasonably expect from someone who had just lost a leg, except Orson had never had a reasonable reaction to anything in his life.

“Orson-”

“Sit down.”

Galen sat down.

Orson didn’t let go of Galen’s wrist, though some of the tension left his shoulders, his breath only catching slightly on the exhale. “You bastard,” he repeated, something unidentifiable making his voice tight, “What the hell do you think I have worth coming back to besides you?”

Galen tried to smile. He was pretty sure it didn’t come out right. “That’s the Comaren talking.” He wished the doctor had used Nyex; Orson wasn’t allergic to Comaren, but it left him raw and prone to babbling, and just the fact that Galen knew how Orson reacted to different painkillers, that he’d ever needed anything other than a topical anesthetic, that he had a leg _blown off_ and nearly bled out in the dirt of a world lightyears away-

The hand on his wrist tightened further, the tips of Orson’s fingers on Galen’s pulse. “Fuck you for saying so. And Galen, I’ll probably never say this to you again, but _stop thinking_.”

Unfortunately, Galen had always been terrible at that. “I can’t do this, Orson. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Orson ran his free hand over his face, rubbing at his temples before pushing his fringe of hair back out of his eyes. “And to think that we were told by the Program that we could do anything.” The wry attempt at humor fell flat for both of them. Galen felt his lips thin, and he looked down. “Wait, look, don’t do that.” Despite himself, Galen leaned in closer as Orson’s voice lowered to a murmur. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I received an offer too, a few weeks back. Research position, out of the field. I was going to turn it down because- well, why isn’t important. Anyway, I can’t give you details, but if I agree to take it, will you stop…” he made a vague gesture at Galen that didn’t convey much of anything.

“Not… take the position on Vallt?”

“No, you might as well do that. My offer involved a posting off Coruscant, so,” Orson shrugged awkwardly, “It isn’t like I would be around to miss you. You _are_ being wasted at the Institute, and with proper funding for kyber crystal research, you could…” Orson made another vague gesture, but this one Galen understood. Orson had read all of Galen’s papers; he was one of the few people outside of the field of crystallography who had read any of them (with the vast majority of the others being Jedi), so he knew exactly the potential properly utilized kyber crystals represented. Nearly unlimited energy, access to which made almost anything possible.

It was, Galen could admit at least in the privacy of his own head, an exciting thought.

But it would mean months, possibly years, before seeing Orson again.

_But if he takes the posting, at least he’ll be alive for you to see._

“And you’ll accept the research position you’re being offered,” Galen said, still half a question. He slipped his wrist out of Orson’s grip, but only to slide his hand to wrap around Orson’s.

It had been a holdover from some previous group of students in the Program, one that had carried on long after those students had graduated. The way pacts were formed and vows made inviolate. A little ridiculous perhaps, but it had always felt to Galen like something sacred, a ritual that proved he was part of something greater than himself as he had never been before joining the Futures Program.

Orson just stared down at their joined hands for a long moment before smiling faintly and adjusting his hold to the proper position. “It’ll be awfully dull to be stuck in one place for so long, but I suppose I can stand it until the war is over.”

Galen didn’t smile back, but his hand was far steadier in Orson’s grasp than it had been in his own, the shaking stopped at last. “Until the war is over.”


End file.
